Past and Present
by the.goal.is.greatness
Summary: The longer one holds onto a memory, the longer one lives in the past. The deeper the memory you hold onto, the more beautiful the past will become. [Peter x OC]


**Title:** Past and Present  
**Genre:** Romance / Angst  
**Rating:** T  
**Pairing:** Peter x OC  
**Spoilers:** N/A  
**Summary:** The longer one holds onto a memory, the longer one lives in the past. The deeper the memory will hold onto, the more beautiful the past will become.  
**Word Count:** 1,352  
**Warnings:** N/A

**Disclaimer:** Not mine. Summary is from Trigun.

**A/N:** There was a lot of life lived in Narnia before the Kings and Queens followed the White Stag home.

* * *

It happened suddenly sometimes. He'd look up, see the profile of a person on the streets of London, and for an instant, he'd be somewhere else, in another time, another place.

_Across the throne room were hordes of people, nobles from the sister-lands of Narnia, and Peter was dying from boredom. He had thought there would be more battles, more glory, more adventure. But there were so many meetings and parties and balls. It was exhausting. He craved the great, wide open sea, the dark Narnian forests. Not this diplomatic jungle._

_For a moment, he glanced up, and his eye was drawn to the curve of a face, a slanted cheek, a long pale column of throat, a soft cascade of dirty brunette hair, and he paused. He followed the motion of a graceful hand brushing that hair behind a dainty ear. _

_Suddenly, the face turned, emerald eyes fastened on his with deadly accuracy, amusing and bright. One eyebrow arched in condescending amusement. He blushed and her laughter echoed throughout the room._

He shook his head, watching the young girl before him chase after her mother. The curve of her face had been the same, the light playing off her hair had been the same. But she had turned and broken the spell – her eyes blue, her nose too pointed, her mouth too narrow.

It was an ache, deep in his bones, weighing on his chest like heavy armor. He was here, she was there. She had stayed and he was gone. Away, left, no way back. At night he wondered what sort of torture this was – to give him something, someone, so perfect, so meant for him, only to take it away, to snatch it from him as quickly as falling rain. He still had life to live, they still had life together. It wasn't fair.

_Her name. He must know her name. Edmund scoffed at him, still too young for girls. Susan had laughed, her eyes mirthful and sisterly. Lucy had shrugged, uncaring about people who were no of interest to her. So he had stalked her, with the intensity of a hunter on the prowl, she was his golden hind, his white stag…_

"_You're very bad at this you know, your Highness."_

_He jerked, startled, tripping over his feet at the voice from behind him. When he had righted himself and turned, she was there, her fan in front of her mouth but amusement spilling from her eyes like water from a fountain. He flushed, not used to being one-upped, not used to not being the one in control. "I – "_

"_I'm Katalina – from Archenland." She curtsied daintily in front of him. "My father is the advisor to our king," she elaborated, thankfully, for Peter was having trouble placing the name. "And you are the High King Peter," she glanced up from her curtsey, eyes playful, "a noble hunter of women."_

_When the blush that had recently begun to fade returned anew, she laughed gaily – and it was like birdsong._

He heard that laugh in his dreams, a constant tinkling sound always in the background. It remained in his mind long after he had awoken. He heard it every day – sometimes on the street or in school or the train station. A laugh would rise above the others, and for a moment, just a moment, his heart would leap. But then, no, it wasn't her laugh. It was too loud, too high, too throaty, too low. Not the same.

_Before, Peter had never minded when delegations left. It meant the end of the incessant meetings, it meant he could get on with ruling his own kingdom. But this time, he wanted the meetings to never end. To finish these meetings meant that Katalina would return home with her father, to a place where he could seldom visit. He found himself dragging them out, playing Devil's advocate for things simply to make the deliberations last longer. He did not want her to go._

"_My father says these are the longest conferences he has ever attended."_

"_Hm?" He was barely listening. He was too enraptured by the way the sunlight played off her hair, the way bees and fairies danced around her in the garden. It was quiet here, intimate, just to two of them._

"_He wonders if someone is keeping the meetings extended for any particular reason…" she was glancing at him from the corner of her eye._

_That he heard. "Ah, I – uh…" He fidgeted, uncomfortable. What to say to her now…_

"_If… that were the case…" She glanced away from him, and he watched with fascination as a gentle blush formed high on her cheek. "I would not… be opposed." Emerald eyes pinned to his. "If they were honest with me about it."_

_No time to think, no time to plan. He simply crushed her to him, mouth-to-mouth, uncaring about protocol, only needing her to know, to feel what he felt. "Yes, I want you to stay." He whispered against those lips. "Please, stay with me."_

_And her answer was the sweetest sound he had ever heard. "Of course."_

"Of course, we should visit Lucy for the holidays."

Peter shook his head, mind still in the past, while his body was here. Of course. Of course she had said. But here it was Susan, his sister, not his wife, not his queen. A sister-queen. But not the same. No one here was ever the same. It was so hard to keep himself separate, to remember where he was. Edmund got into fights at school, using years of training to his advantage. Susan had joined the archery team, a prodigy who hit the bull's eye every time. Lucy was simply Lucy – kind and caring and good and loving to all, at home in either world.

But Peter had left behind so much more than they had…

"What do you th – "

" – _ink we should name him?"_

"_Why are you so sure that it will be a boy?" He wasn't looking at her, his eyes were still glued to the gently curving belly, the stomach that contained his child. His _child_. _Their_ child._

_She laughed. "It's just a feeling I have." She rubbed her pregnant belly, hand brushing against Peter's, delighting at his smile when the baby kicked against his hand. "He kicks like a mule." Their hands intertwined atop their child, eyes wondrous and light – in love._

"_May –"_

" – be we should surprise her? Peter? Peter are you listening?"

Confusion when Susan slapped him on the arm, forcing himself back into a different time, a different place, a fatherless place, a husbandless place. It was lonely. There was no one beside him when he woke. No children laughing and playing in the early morning. In their world he was too young to know what it was like to father children, too young to have taught a son how to ride his first horse, or helped his daughter learned to dance. He was too young for a wife in this world. But there, in the other world, he was all of those things. And he _ached_ with missing it, a hole that could not be filled. Because it was taken from him so suddenly. His wife, his children, wondering where he'd gone, where he'd vanished to, wondering if he had abandoned them.

But he would never!

"Peter? I'm worried about you." Susan's voice was motherly, concerned. "You've been so sad since we came back, is there anything I can do?"

He shook his head. "No, Susan." He tried to smile at her, failed. "It's alright." But it wasn't.

She stared at him long and hard. "Well, okay. But, know I that I – "

" – _love you, Peter."_


End file.
